A powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook the south of Cuba on Sunday, without causing any casualties, at a time when the country is barely recovering from the passage of Hurricane Rafael which caused a widespread power outage for two days.
• Also read: Hurricane “Rafael”: Most of Cuba has electricity
The earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8, with an epicenter located at a depth of 23.5 kilometers, about 40 km from the coast of Bartolomé Maso, in the province of Granma (southeast) occurred at 11:49 a.m. local time, according to the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS).
This earthquake was preceded, an hour earlier in the same area, by an already powerful earthquake, with a magnitude of 5.9, according to the same source. The affected region is some 800 km from Havana.
The tremors were felt in all the eastern provinces of the country and in some in the center, the official press said. So far, no victims have been recorded, according to the authorities.
“We communicated with the first secretaries of the (Communist) Party in Santiago de Cuba and Granma, the provinces affected by the recent earthquakes. There were landslides, damage to houses and power lines,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on X.
AFP
In Caney de las Mercedes, a small village in the municipality of Bartolomé Maso, Karen Rodriguez told AFP: “We felt it very strongly here. About half an hour after the first shock, we were on our way home when a second one hit, and it was even stronger.”
In the village, “there are houses with cracked walls, others with walls that have collapsed and others with collapsed roofs,” this 28-year-old hairdresser testified by telephone.
“That’s all we needed!”
In Bayamo, capital of the province of Granma, which has 140,000 inhabitants and is located about 50 kilometers from Bartolomé Maso, residents also felt the two tremors, according to testimonies collected by AFP.
“The (electric) poles were moving, the street, everything lasted about 20 seconds, the first (shake). Because then there was another one, which was also very strong. People were scared, everyone was running, leaving their homes,” says Livan Chavez, a 24-year-old welder.
Dalia Rodriguez, a housewife, said a wall in her house was damaged. “That’s all we needed!” she said.
AFP
Cuba is barely recovering from Category 3 Hurricane Rafael, which struck the west of the island on Wednesday and caused a widespread power outage that lasted nearly two days. The gradual restoration of electricity continued on Sunday in the most affected areas, notably in Havana.
About 85% of homes in the capital regained power, according to authorities, while two western provinces, Artemisa, the hardest hit by the hurricane, and Pinar del Rio, in the far west, remained without electricity. .
Three weeks earlier, a previous blackout left 10 million residents without power for four days. At the same time, another hurricane, Oscar, category 1, hit the far east of the island, killing seven people.
In the center of Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second city, located some 175 km from the most affected area, “people quickly took to the streets because the ground moved very hard,” said Andres Perez, a 65 year old retiree. “We really felt it very strongly, my wife is completely on edge,” he added.
Earthquakes are common in the eastern region of Cuba, which lies on the boundary of the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates.
Last month, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Santiago de Cuba without causing damage.
At the end of January 2020, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook the Caribbean between Cuba and Jamaica, felt in several provinces of Cuba, but without causing damage despite evacuations in Havana.
